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hald wont start?

05-06-2008, 12:07 PM

Hey guys, I posted this question on the Gentoo forums but it hasnt gotten much attention there. I really need to get this problem solved so that I can use my computer. Discs wont automount in gnome without hald. Network manager wont start without hald, and so on and on.. I really need to get this fixed.

The problem is that hald wont start. If I do an "/etc/init.d/hald start" all I get is a little red symbol on the right side of the screen.... This is a screenshot of the problem...

Well, guys I figured out the problem... And it's not my fault. I'm kind of annoyed that it even happened becouse it is so simple it should have never even happened in the first place. Not to mention that it should have spit out --some-- kind of error message.

It turns out that hald wont start if dbus or acpid starts before it. In order for hald to start it needs to load before either dbus or acpid. All I had to do to fix it was to go into /etc/init.d/hald and add acpid and dbus to the needs line. A simple 1 line fix. Took me two whole days to figure it out. Why? Becouse of nonexistent error messages and poor documentation. I mean come on. This has got to be the most ridiculous and pointless loss of time I've ever come across. All becouse someone forgot to add acpid as a dependency of hald.

Just plain stupid is what it is.

The person writing these init scripts should have caught that before he even made it public, and even then people running the testing builds should have caught it. I guess it just goes to show just how poorly tested Gentoo really is. That something this simple has gotten past the developer of the script, past the testing keyword, and is now marked stable. The fact that this simple little oversight can cripple a system, and that it is marked stable says volumes. The number of unstable scripts and packages that are marked stable on Gentoo is simply staggering. Absolutely overwhelming. It's completely ridiculous.

Comment

Well, guys I figured out the problem... And it's not my fault. I'm kind of annoyed that it even happened becouse it is so simple it should have never even happened in the first place. Not to mention that it should have spit out --some-- kind of error message.

It turns out that hald wont start if dbus or acpid starts before it. In order for hald to start it needs to load before either dbus or acpid. All I had to do to fix it was to go into /etc/init.d/hald and add acpid and dbus to the needs line. A simple 1 line fix. Took me two whole days to figure it out. Why? Becouse of nonexistent error messages and poor documentation. I mean come on. This has got to be the most ridiculous and pointless loss of time I've ever come across. All becouse someone forgot to add acpid as a dependency of hald.

hald has always needed dbus in order to start and dbus needed udev to start. this worked quite well with gentoo for a lot of time.

Just plain stupid is what it is.

The person writing these init scripts should have caught that before he even made it public, and even then people running the testing builds should have caught it. I guess it just goes to show just how poorly tested Gentoo really is. That something this simple has gotten past the developer of the script, past the testing keyword, and is now marked stable. The fact that this simple little oversight can cripple a system, and that it is marked stable says volumes. The number of unstable scripts and packages that are marked stable on Gentoo is simply staggering. Absolutely overwhelming. It's completely ridiculous.